Episode 444: Questions of Science and Progress
Date May 7, 2014 Summary Ben and Sam answer listener emails about replay and umpires, home field advantage, picking a front office to follow, and more. Topics * Shadowing a front office * Home field advantage * Using replay to grade umpires * Winning percentage based on specific events * Bar for qualifying offers * Pace of play vs. season length Intro Elvis Presley, "Easy Question" Banter Anonymous comments about the MLB talent pool. Email Questions * Brady: "If you could shadow with any MLB front office who would it be?" * Ken: "Home field advantage in MLB has long been in the low to mid 50% range. If you had control over it, would you make home field less pronounced so that the game would come down to talent and strategy or would a bigger advantage make for a more interested narrative or at least justify the narratives that we already get?" * Ken: "I would like to hear your thoughts on replays and how you think they might impact the job security of major league umpires. I know that umpires outwardly endorse replays but it seems the challenges are an in game test for them, a very public trial of their abilities. Without naming names, I can think of one umpire who is always finding himself in the middle of skirmishes before replays were introduced. Do you think MLB will use replays or challenges as a way of grading umpires and making changes based on them?" * Brett: "Today's podcast about intentional walks reminded me of my favorite baseball fun fact. Every time a team has intentionally walked a batter with the bases loaded the pitching team has gone on to win the game. Can the Baseball Reference play index do searches like this? What's a team winning percentage when they hit a grand slam for example?" * Matt: "Brandon Warne mentioned on Twitter Monday that Scott Kazmir made his first start of 2013 in AAA before joining the Indians. Brandon wondered why that didn't disqualify Kazmir from being given a qualifying offer (he didn't get one anyway). The answer is that as long as a guy is with the same franchise all year it doesn't matter where he pitches. Brandon then sarcastically asks 'So he could have made 10 starts and still been stupidly offered a qualifying offer?' and of course he could have but he never would have, right? How good would 10 starts have to be from Josh Johnson or Scott Kazmir or Ubaldo Jimenez to merit a qualifying offer as far as you guys are concerned? An ERA of 1.00? A 30% strikeout rate? Is there any realistic amount of success a player could have in 10 starts if he had done nothing else over the previous two years to make you pull that trigger." * Matt: "I am getting a great and growing number of complaints from my more casual baseball fan friends and family about the length and pace of games. There are various ways to address that, but I'm most fascinated by this dichotomy. Would you guys rather, if you had to choose, shorten games to 6 innings or shorten the regular season to 100 games? Play Index * Sam is inspired by Brett's email to look up team winning percentages based on certain offensive outcomes. * A teams with 0 RBI in a game will win the game 7.5% of the time. * Teams with 1 home run in a game have a .540 winning percentage. * Teams with 1 or more IBB in a game win 73.6% of the time. * Teams with 1 or more sacrifice bunts have a .638 winning percentage. * Teams with a left handed pitcher have a .505 winning percentage. Notes * Sam would like to follow the Dodgers front office, Ben chose the Rays, with the Rockies a close second. * Home field advantage in the NBA is 61% and it is 57% in the NFL. * The Pirates won on a walk-off replay review. * Sam would choose to shorten games because he is so dependent on having 162 game seasons. Like caffeine, he says he needs a little bit of baseball every day. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 444: Questions of Science and Progress * Changes needed to quicken the pace of game by Peter Gammons Category:Email Episodes Category:Episodes